


search you out

by pocky_slash



Series: Mutant Summer Camp [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Established Relationship, First Love, Introspection, M/M, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/496597">we were the only ones there</a>. Alone at sunset, Charles just wants to make sure Erik is still there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	search you out

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the following tweet from David Levithan's [@LoversDiction](http://twitter.com/loversdiction) account:  
> [ **dim**](https://twitter.com/loversdiction/status/259125306890285057), _adj.: In that hour between the sky darkening and the lighting of our lamps, I search you out, just wanting to know you’re there._  
>  Thanks to **pearl_o** for the beta ♥

Charles drops his kids off at campfire and then tells Betsy he has something to take care of. She gives him a knowing look that has nothing to do with telepathy, but she doesn't say anything and he leaves quickly, before Mr. Black can notice he's gone. He's not leaving for the reasons Betsy thinks, but he lets her believe this is a secret tryst. It's easier to allow that than to try and explain that sometimes he just needs to see a sunset to remember that it's okay for things to end.

He walks towards the sunset, keeps walking until he can't hear the singing down at the campfire, until it's him and the insects and the animals and the pink streaks across the sky. He walks until he's at the mouth of the creek that feeds into the lake and he climbs down to perch on a boulder that he's particularly fond of. It's large and flat and warm from the sun. He leans back on his hands and stares up at the sky.

He doesn't want camp to end. He doesn't want to go to college. He doesn't want to navigate a new social minefield with the twin weights of "Xavier" and "telepath" weighing him down. He doesn't want to move away from his sister. He's afraid of being on his own. He doesn't want to leave behind his camp friends, his sense of belonging, the solid ground he finds here. He can be himself at camp. He can exist without the constant strain of meeting the expectations piled on him from all sides. He can use his powers and babble about things that interest him and sing songs with the younger children and act like the giant geek that he is without anyone judging him.

He has Erik, here, Erik whom he's known all of two weeks, but who _understands him_ the way that so few other people in his life ever have. Erik thinks he's a terrible nerd and completely ridiculous, but he _likes_ those things. He holds Charles' hand when they're sitting around the campfire together and kisses Charles good morning in front of campers and staff alike. He listens to Charles and tells Charles things he's never told anyone else.

Charles isn’t stupid. He knows he's seventeen, that hormones are playing as much of a part in this as anything else. He won't deny that his first thought at seeing Erik was lustful and that his first overture of friendship was made with the intention of making a move sooner rather than later. But being trapped in that cave changed things. More things, he thinks, for Erik than for him, but for better or worse, they came out connected and Charles feels that connection every day. It's like he was meant to find Erik. It's like this was meant to happen.

Charles isn't religious and he doesn't buy into the sort of spiritual crap that his mother occasionally reads about in magazines. He doesn't think there's a larger destiny pulling him and Erik together, but he can't deny that he's never felt this way about someone, like he knows them, like he's been waiting all his life for them. The closest it came was with Raven when she first stumbled upon their family.

He wants to be happy for these last few weeks at camp, but he can't ignore what's coming. He'll be moving to a new city, to a place where people will make assumptions based on his name and his power and his age. He'll be completely alone and he'll be saying goodbye to someone who's changed his life.

The pinks in the sky are turning to purple and Charles is suddenly, viscerally aware of how little time they have left. He reaches out almost clumsily, brushing past all of the minds between him and the other side of the lake before he slides into Erik's camp, Erik's campfire, the cool draft of Erik's thoughts. He sits for a moment, just at the surface, relieved that he can still do this, at least, still feel the comfort of this touch, before hesitantly brushing for Erik's attention.

"Is--" he feels Erik say out loud before he catches himself. The camper to Erik's left looks at him dubiously. Erik just shakes his head before thinking, _Is everything okay?_

 _It's fine,_ Charles assures him, feeling suddenly foolish. _I was just. I just needed to know you were there._

 _I am,_ Erik replies. _Right here. Whenever you need me._

Charles swallows and closes his eyes.

 _Good,_ Charles says. He doesn't say anything else, and neither does Erik, at least, not to him. Charles lets Erik's instructions to his campers wash over him like a distant rumble, lets the songs from Erik's campfire form the soundtrack of the sunset. He rests his head on his knees and opens his eyes to the watercolor sky that's getting deeper and darker as the crickets begin to chirp. The songs fade, eventually, but Charles is so lulled by the background noise of Erik's mind (the location of all the metal in a fifty foot radius, his internal clock, the steady stream of emotion that chirps _Charles_ with every other thought) that he doesn't notice _why_ until he can nearly hear the footsteps.

He doesn't speak or look up, though he does inch forward on the rock. He follows Erik's proximity without looking away from the sky and looks up only when a tiny landslide of pebbles and dirt shower down on him as Erik climbs the bank of the creek and settles onto the rock at Charles' back.

"You didn't have to come," he says. "I'm just--you didn't have to come."

Erik wraps his arms around Charles and rests his chin on Charles' shoulder.

"I just needed to know you're here," Erik says.

They stay like that, serenaded by the crickets and the frogs, until the sky turns from purple to a dark, inky black and the stars and fireflies mingle together far above their heads.


End file.
